Chapter 5 discusses the great potential of China-specific rules on pricing and commercial behaviour of SOEs, coupled with WTO rules on subsidies both in the original Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM Agreement) and further elaborated in China’s WTO Accession Protocol. In particular, in response to the argument that WTO subsidy rules have been rendered ineffective by the AB’s interpretation of the term ’public body’, we argue that the utility of the provision has been rehabilitated by the AB’s subsequent decision in US–Countervailing Measures (China) (Article 21.5). Moreover, even the original ’authority-based’ test is no longer an insurmountable hurdle due to the back-tracking of China’s SOE reform in recent years, which resulted in more micro-management by the Party and state in the management of SOEs. Thus, the best way to tackle China’s state capitalism is through WTO litigation based on existing rules discussed in this chapter.

This chapter repositions the debate on dual pricing as part of the bigger challenge of combating climate change. It addresses dual pricing from the perspective of the broader task of reforming environmentally harmful fossil fuel subsidies. The chapter moves beyond the potentially discriminatory nature of dual pricing to lay out options for disciplining dual-pricing practices in the WTO system in the grounds of their negative environmental impact. After providing some background, the chapter explores two main avenues for dealing with dual pricing: it first discusses what possibilities exist under current WTO rules, and then it explores what action the WTO can take beyond its current legal toolkit in the wider context of fossil fuel subsidy reform. The key argument is that the WTO can be a crucial actor in eliminating dual-pricing policies and can facilitate and significantly contribute to fossil fuel subsidy reform.